Formula 1’s terrible excuse for racing is IndyCar’s gain

Following another terrible excuse for a Formula 1 race at Circuit Paul Ricard, Sunday’s IndyCar race at Road America featured record viewership on NBC.

Through the first eight races of the 21-race 2019 Formula 1 season, it has been nothing more than the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport show. It might as well be called “Formula 1 turn decides each race”, because going back to last season, whichever Mercedes driver has been ahead of the other heading into turn one has won nine of the last 10 races.

This past Sunday’s French Grand Prix was a new low for the sport, even for this frightfully boring season. For the sixth time in the last seven races and the fourth consecutive race, it was Lewis Hamilton driving away from the field to add to his win total.

Additionally, for the fourth time in his last five victories (fourth time in his last four victories if you still believe Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel won the Canadian Grand Prix), he led every lap en route to dominating.

But what has been a disaster for Formula 1 has indirectly been IndyCar‘s gain.

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Even diehard Formula 1 elitists who ignorantly insist that all America’s premier open-wheel series is is a bunch of left turns (despite the fact that it is a road/street course-dominated series) and that it is only good for becoming a home for drivers who failed to make it in the so-called “pinnacle of motorsport” are getting tired of watching the same old insomnia-curing parades week in and week out.

Just hours after the French Grand Prix concluded, Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi took the field to school in the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America, dominating the 55-lap caution-free race around the 14-turn, 4.048-mile (6.515-kilometer) natural terrain road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin en route to winning it by 28.4391 seconds over Team Penske’s Will Power in second place, the largest winning margin in almost a full decade.

The fact that IndyCar can put on a race where a driver wins by almost half a minute for the first time in 10 years and that race is still astronomically more exciting that the races of the world’s most popular racing series speaks volumes, and people are noticing.

Hamilton, himself a past unreasonably ignorant and biased critic of IndyCar and its full-time drivers, praised the series for their usage of the great track that is Road America, and he has been very vocal over the last few days about just how boring Formula 1 has become despite the fact that he has had more success to start this season than he has in any other start to a season in his career.

Can you blame him? Sure, he is playing a part in this boredom by dominating every race, but it’s really not his fault. Imagine playing a racing video game on a beginner-level difficulty. Of course you’re going to win every race, but after a few minutes, of course you’re going to get bored, especially if, at most, you are battling with one other car.

This is not Hamilton being greedy or trying to play the victim card despite how it may seem given Mercedes’ ridiculous continual “underdog” act; it’s called being realistic and sympathizing with a ticked-off fanbase.

As for Formula 1’s trash being IndyCar’s treasure, the REV Group Grand Prix at the European-style Road America broke NBC’s TV ratings record, not including the audience for the network’s inaugural broadcast of the Indianapolis 500 at the end of May.

According to RACER, this race drew a total of 1.104 million viewers and a 0.77 rating. As for its total audience delivery, it averaged 1.109 million viewers. In terms of year over year performance, viewership is up by a whopping 19% for IndyCar in the five races that have been broadcast live on NBC so far this season compared to the five races that were broadcast live on ABC last year.

These numbers still pale in comparison to Formula 1‘s audience, but as far as IndyCar‘s improvement over the course of the last few seasons, these numbers are unmatched, and it is hard to imagine that none of this has to do with the stale product that Formula 1 has become.

Regardless of how people view the skill required to compete in Formula 1 as opposed to IndyCar, Formula 1 fans want competitive action in high-level racing series, and that is exactly what IndyCar provides on a lap-by-lap basis. Meanwhile, Formula 1 has not yet provided it at all except in one or two instances up to this point in the season.